Thank you all so much for the thoughtful replies. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come back to this but I have been thinking about it.
It's something I've always struggled with to varying degrees I think. It's been worse when I've been struggling more with my mental health but I always find it hard to stay on top of normal life stuff.
I think that is a really good suggestion about finding things overwhelming because of how it was when you were unwell. I think that is part of it for me. And also I think maybe part of it is learned behaviour? Like, my parents have their own struggles so household tasks and keeping in touch with people and keeping appointments were always difficult for them when I was a child and I think I've never really learned to establish routines and small tasks seem like a bigger deal than they are.
I also realised that I'm in a weird cycle where I don't feel like I can do things I want to do or things that are for me unless everything that I 'have to' do is done. But the list of things I have to do is never realistically going to have everything ticked off. Like, if all my cleaning tasks aren't done I feel like I can't relax and do things I want like crafting or going to the gym. So I'm just in this endless cycle of not doing everything I feel I should and berating myself for it which makes it harder. I'm trying to change that now.
Things that help at work are being realistic about what I can get done in a day, so I'll have a list of what needs done through the week and then in the morning I'll make a priority list of tasks that most urgently need doing that day. I'm not good at working from home, I get too easily distracted so I try to go in to the office most of the time which is easier because it feels like I'm specifically there to work. And I'll set timers for myself so I know I only have to focus for x minutes at a time and then I can have a short break and go for a wander or whatever!
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